Angry community members of Muhlava Cross village have barricaded the busy Lydenburg-Tzaneen road outside Tzaneen in Limpopo. They want the power utility, Eskom, to end load-shedding in the area.
The protest action has disrupted traffic.
The community members at Muhlava Cross village have expressed their anger at Eskom’s load-shedding by blocking the road. They say that the situation is now unbearable and that the power cuts last more than five hours a day.
Some say they have not had power since Sunday. One of the community members accuses Eskom of failing to resolve their problem.
“As angry community, we want service delivery. Because two weeks back, we had a meeting with Eskom people here by Sasekani. They promised us that they will solve the problem but, now the problem is getting worse. We don’t know what’s going on. So that’s why we barricade this road. We can’t afford to organise transport for everyone to go to their office or whatsoever so we know this road carries a lot of economies,” deplores a community member.
Meanwhile, Eskom regional spokesperson, Thomas Ceko says they have implemented load reductions due to abnormal use of power, mainly caused by illegal connections and tampering with the electricity meters.
“Load reduction is Eskom immediate response to safeguard its assets from repeated failure and damage to overloading caused by illegal connections, metre bypasses and tampering with electricity infrastructure. Impact analysis of electricity theft is periodically conducted to identify areas where overloading and equipment failure frequently occurs in order to determine the duration of load reduction,” says Thomas Ceko.
The community members have vowed to continue with their protest action until the matter is resolved. Police have been deployed to monitor the situation.
